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In your bag No: 1418 – Max Lamdin

In your bag No: 1418, Max Lamdin Max has been here before, with a very different bag. But now things have changed and he has a completely new setup.Come and check out how things have changed.

My name’s Max Lamdin, I posted a bag last year (no. 1209) however thought it was necessary to send another due to the complete overhaul I’ve had in camera gear since then!

I was very due to film photography when I sent that bag in and feel that in the last year I’ve honed in on what it is I want the achieve through photography, I was shooting with a Pentax K1000 (great camera for beginners), Pentacon Six (lovely camera but I never really got on with it) and a small Olympus Superzoom (bit too basic).

Since last year I have also made the decision to start studying Photography as university as of September which i’m incredibly excited about due to the fact that I will be able to shoot EVERYDAY (and get free c41 developing).

Now, as you can see from my most recent bag, I’ve upgraded to the Nikon F4 and the Bronica ETRSi! both of which i’m incredibly happy with, pictured is also a small amount of my film stock pile; from 120 Acros 100, to bulk loaded Kentmere 400 and Kodak Colorplus 200. I also made the decision to invest in a decent lens for the F4 and went with the 50mm 1.8G (which does work on the F4 no matter what people tell me), this has also allowed me to have an extra lens for my digital shots, as I use a Nikon D3100 (definitely not the best) and I think this has also allowed me to increase my photographic output as I was sick of the standard 18-55mm kit lens.

Story time; so not only has my gear improved since last year, I have also got a job! and this is very close to my dream job even though I am only 18, yes, I work in my local camera shop (Canterbury Camera Centre if anyone’s interested), this is mainly what has allowed me to improve my gear due to the ability to test and play with a massive range of cameras as well as seeing some wonderful cameras that customers bring in from time to time, another perk being the staff discount on film, developing and second hand items.

This is mainly how I ended up with the Bronica as I has borrowed a Mamiya 645 from work as I wasn’t getting on with the Pentacon and wanted to change things up a bit, after shooting with the Mamiya I knew I wanted to go 6×4.5 however wasn’t happy with the slow flash sync speed of the Mamiya (1/60th) as I enjoy studio whenever I can use it as school, this lead me to a deep conversation with a colleague about what to go for, before I finally settled on the Bronica due to its leaf shutter I can sync all the way up to 1/500th meaning less chance of people blinking!

The F4 was sort of a personal endeavour, I knew I wanted an autofocus SLR and wanted to stick with Nikon so I could then invest in lenses if I ever change my DSLR, I went for the F4 mainly because I like the dials and simple lay out of it, however I have more recently been considering also purchasing an F100 after an F5 came into the shop (F100 over F5 purely due to size), although i’d like to keep my F4, I also think it might be a tough one to sell as it’s not in the best shape, however shooting it is so much fun and the images it produces are so good!

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Thanks for coming back to us, Max. Very interesting to see how things have changed. Check out the links and please come and comment.Keep them coming folks, we need more submissions, so get your bag on Japancamerahunter.com

Send me a high resolution image of the bag. Optimum size is 1500px across. Please ensure there is a bag in the shot, unless you don’t use one. The more you can write about yourself the better, make it appealing and tell us a story. Snapshots of your gear with a camera phone and no words will not be featured.

Oh and don’t forget your contact details (twitter, flickr, tumbler et al). Send the bag shots here. Please understand that there is a long wait now as there is a backlog of submissions. Not all make the cut, so make sure yours is funny/interesting/quirky. And please make sure the shot is of good quality, as the ones that are not do not go up.

4 comments on “In your bag No: 1418 – Max Lamdin”

Just a word of advice: when I still was shooting film only (mostly because a DSLR costed at the time in the realm of 30.000€…for 3Mp) I too “upgraded” from an F4s to an F100.

I loved to bits the F4s (I still think is THE best camera ever made), and the upgrade was due mostly to the fact that my camera was seriously beat down, with all the writing coming off and it had started chewing up batteries like candies.

But the very first time I went out shooting with my brand new F100, at a Sarah Jane Morris concert, hurrying to change roll I accidentally tried to close the back when the roll wasn’t properly seated. Mind you, it was just *slightly* out of position, and I didn’t push like a madman on the back, I used the usual amount of force, i.e. not much.

Still, the crank shaft (or whatever is called) that goes into the roll, and that in the F4s is made of metal, in the F100 is made of PLASTIC. It snapped in half, and I was unable to shoot other rolls of that particular concert because I didn’t have the money for a spare camera at the time, I was an half-broke university student after all ;)

Nicely presented Max! I see a good progression in your equipment and bravo for the camera shop job! I agree… Neopan 100 Acros is a fantastic black and white negative film. I’m not much of a b&w shooter but when I do it’s Acros. Regards… Chris

The F4 is one of the greatest cameras ever made, and likely the greatest SLR ever made. I purchased a really nice one ten years ago and have been using it ever since. It has never let me down. The matrix metering on the F4 is very consistent and accurate, and is usable with any lens that Nikon ever made (including some excellent AIS lenses). The physicality of the camera is exemplary… everything is where you need it. I often shoot in low (or no) light and need to shoot by touch. The viewfinder is perfectly laid out and provides everything you need about the status of the camera. I would never part with this camera!

If the F4 isn’t working for you, by all means go to an F100. They are utterly superb cameras, and don’t be put off by the plastic sprocket. Many pros used these without incident. And definitely much lighter and more compact than the F4 or F5. An F6 would be ideal, but they’re still very pricey.

I’ve not seen the appeal of the F4, frankly. It’s a poor autofocus camera, and a bulky manual one.